Blog

  • WTF by the Numbers

    Mitchell Scherr has done a statistical breakdown of what Marc Maron calls his listeners during the intro for WTF over the past 50 episodes. I’ve always really enjoyed hearing “What the fuckstables.” so any time I can see that in print, I’m happy…

  • Moving Day

    If anyone notices a significant speed increase on the site here, it’s because I’ve finally gotten around to moving it from a well meaning but poky VPS over at DreamHost to a shiny new supercharged account at WP Engine.

  • Peel Slowly & See

    Does anybody want to buy a lightly used, month and a half old Peel? It’s a pretty great little device — and its complimentary iOS app is fantastic — but we’re just not using it as much as I thought we would.

    What can I say? Sarah is too damn fast with the normal remote for me to even compete. The show discovery functionality is top notch tho, and that’s what I’ve been using the most.

    They normally go for $99 (and they’re on sale for $79 right now) but I’d be willing to part with mine for $60. Dive into the comments and make me an offer if you’re interested.

    Update: Seriously? No takers? Even if I say that I’ll take $50 for it? Am I going to have to try to sell this thing on eBay?

  • Cleaning Up Unicode Cruft in WordPress

    While helping someone with WordPress move earlier this week, I noticed a bunch of weird Unicode cruft (like ’ and –) in their posts and comments. Apparently, MySQL databases don’t like it when you switch their default character encoding. But different web hosts have different ways of doing things — so default character encodings can (and sometimes do) change while you’re moving a site around.

    Anyhow, after a bit of digging, I found a really handy set of MySQL commands that fixed things up. But I like to save time, so I made myself a Gist for future use and decided to share it with y’all…

    Hopefully someone else out there finds this useful! I know I’ll probably use it at least once or twice a week now that I’m doing a lot more work with MySQL imports.

    Good luck!

  • CMD + Conquer

    When I started over at WP Engine earlier this week, a brand new MacBook Air came into my possession. It’s very pretty and lightweight and I kind of love it more than any other computer I’ve ever owned. So much so that I made the decision to break with my normal tradition and keep this hot little number sticker free.

    That declaration only lasted about a day and a half tho…

    Why? Well, I just came across the Command Bamboo Back from Grove. And I really want it. Like in a bad way.

    It’s not a traditional sticker tho. It’s made out of real bamboo. And the shape carved into it actually changes that (somewhat ubiquitous) glowing Apple logo into something that I love so much that I put it on me forever.

    Anyhow, they’ve got a bunch of clever and novel designs over there. If you’re looking for something a bit different, do yourself a favor and browse around their shop.

  • Peeling a Whole Head of Garlic, Very Quickly

    How To Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds

    At first, I saw this and I was like:

    WHAT?!

    But then I did some Googling and saw that Real Simple suggested the same method and I was like:

    Clap

  • Lytro

    Hello, Lytro. You’re a mighty handsome gentleman, aren’t you?

    One day, I will be able to justify purchasing you. Until then, I’ll just be hanging out over here. Staring longingly.

    *sigh*

  • Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

    Hey. How’s it going?

    I’ve got some pretty major news that I’ve been sitting on for a while now, but the time has come where I can finally share it.

    Ready? Okay. Here we go…

    After October 26th, I will no longer work with the very amazing and inspiring people at DreamHost. Considering that I’ve been loyal to them for well over 5 years now — and I thought I’d be here for much longer — that’s kind of a big deal for me.

    But that’s nothing compared to what’s next…

    Just under three weeks from now, I’ll be hopping on a plane to Austin to start working with the wicked smart crew over at WP Engine. If you don’t know about them yet, they’re a startup that focuses solely on highly optimized WordPress hosting.

    No mail. No one-click installer full of other stuff. No Rails or Django. Just pure, unadulterated WordPress.

    Now this new job doesn’t mean that Sarah and I are going to be moving to Texas or anything. In fact, I still get to live and work in Los Angeles. I’m mostly just heading out there to get familiar with the team and soak up as much barbecue as stupid Weight Watchers will let me.

    Anyhow, it’s really exciting (not to mention a bit scary) to go from an established company to a startup. But I really believe in what WP Engine is trying to do. It’s a fantastic space and a great idea and I’m ready to help make an impact.

    Wish me luck!

  • Goodbye, Betty Jean

    Shit.

    I just found out that my grandma Betty passed away this morning and I am absolutely gutted. I knew this day was coming and I tried bracing myself for it, but the very second I heard the news, my heart started to ache. Knowing that I’ll never get to see her smile or share a laugh with her again feels like almost too much to bear.

    She was one of the most influential people in my life and now she’s gone. At least she gets to be with my grandpa Bill now. I know that’s what she wanted the most.

    I love you, grandma.

  • Why I Prefer WP Super Cache

    Even though W3 Total Cache seems to have become the more popular and robust option for WordPress caching, I’ve stuck by and continue to recommend WP Super Cache.

    Why? In a word: simplicity.

    Now I could write a big long entry on why simplicity trumps a crapton of options and flexibility, but I’d rather have a look at the options screen for each plugin.

    We’ll start with WP Super Cache:

    This is all you see when you visit the settings page post install. If you really wanted to, you could just turn caching on and call it a day. Of course, you could (and should) go poking around under the hood a bit – so let’s look at the Advanced tab:

    So that’s a bit more extensive — and in some places, downright nerdy — but all of the crucial options stay above the fold. Furthermore, the blue button after the first set of check boxes and radio buttons does a pretty good job of saying “this is where all the really important stuff ends”.

    Now let’s compare that to the options that W3 Total Cache presents to users post install:

    While that’s pretty straightforward, it’s also a lot for someone who’s new to the plugin to take in. Not only that, it doesn’t really make it all that clear what the user should try if they’re getting started.

    Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a me thing at all. As much as I could be a hater, I’m talking from experience here.

    You see, I deal with a pretty significant number of WordPress users over the course of my work week. And there’s always a handful that are running W3 Total Cache that have enabled some combination of Varnish, CDN & CloudFlare. The only problem is, they don’t actually have access to any of the those services.

    In most cases, they were told they needed to install a caching plugin, pronto. It’s not their fault if they’re taking a shotgun approach to using it. It’s the plugin author’s fault for not making things clearer.

    So until W3 Total Cache gives end users a better out of the box experience, I’m going to keep running and recommending WP Super Cache. If you’re tired of being buried under an avalanche of options that you never use, I suggest you check it out.

    Update: Frederick Townes responded on Twitter and claimed that W3 Total Cache was incomplete and sporting the “advanced” UI. Hopefully they’ll be able to roll out something a little more end user friendly soon.